Getting Your Daughter or Son a Computer? Think about the Asus Eee

It looks like a Nintendo DS only slightly larger. In five fashion colours too:

white green pink blue black laptops

At TigerDirect.ca yesterday I saw that the Asus Eee is priced at 365.99. My daughter’s starting to save for a laptop since she’ll be taking some computer science courses in high school next year and she finds the disparity between computers at home and at her dad’s frustrating. We’ve been talking about what she could get for cheap and this might be the one. I like that it runs Linux (which will save me from having to reinstall the OS and pay for a copy of Windows that nobody wants). The 3 usb ports should be sufficient for her needs which at the moment will likely be a mouse, her mp3 player, and a flash drive. There’s always the option of a hub if she needed more. Or the devices take turns. Should be manageable. I wonder how long 2G of hard drive space will last but since 4GB flash drives are easy to come by these days she should just concentrate on saving her work externally. I love that it’s only 2 pounds. She’s already hauling around so many books that I don’t want her adding much more to that. The 512MB of RAM doesn’t sound like much either. Can that be upgraded?

Her birthday’s coming up and she’s told grandparents that this is what she’s saving for. Fun for me was searching flickr.com for all the photos people have uploaded of their Eees.

flickr.com photo by hsufehmi

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4 Comments

  1. Good on her for saving! The eee has been great so far. The only thing I would warn your daughter to keep an eye on is that overusing it – more than an hour or two a day – would be very hard on neck and hands. I find it a relief to put it on a stack of books or a shelf, and jack a portable keyboard (c$60) in. I got it a memory card of about 4 gig that saved having to jack in a flash drive.
    That relieves both problems, and hey presto, a working cheap laptop that is _so_ light and goes in a handbag. Said bag handmade by a loving parent of course! Good luck with it. Thanks for your kind comments on Flickr.

  2. It’s got a built in SD/HC slot that could pop a 4GB card in. The ram is apparently really easy to upgrade to 2GB,though I don’t know what that’d cost.

  3. @ Anne – we’ve got some spare monitors kicking around here so I imagine she’d use the VGA out. A stack of books is a good idea too. Are you using a usb keyboard? I don’t think I saw any ps2 connectors on the side or back. Memory card is a great idea — thanks.

    @ Rob — it looks like upgrading the RAM also voids the warranty… Maybe I’ll wait for the 9″ with 1GB ram. Oh right…I have to remember it’s for the kid, not me…

  4. The spare monitors seems an even better idea. I’ve had no problems with the upgrade, and I’ve got several friends who’ve done the same. But if it’s her precious cash, I’d understand!
    Yes, I’m using a USB foldable keyboard.
    Good luck…

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